


To the Bitter End

by darkling59



Series: Annals of the Incomplete [8]
Category: Blood Ties (TV), Blood-Smoke Series - Tanya Huff
Genre: Angst, F/M, Spoilers for the book series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-17 23:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3547262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkling59/pseuds/darkling59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew it couldn't last forever, but she'd never expected to lose him so soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Bitter End

It was a stupid way to die.

No heroics, no final words, no tearful farewells.

Michael Celluci, homicide detective for the Toronto Police Department, several time co-savior of the world, loving son, and lover of vampire PI Vicki Nelson, was killed at age 55 in a car accident.

There was no question of whether he’d make it or not; his car was hit by a sixteen wheeler head on because the driver hadn’t seen him switching lanes through the fog. The detective, nearing retirement age and contemplating a desk job, never saw it coming.

He was killed instantly.

That night Vicki Nelson woke up alone in his basement crawlspace, one of two planned sanctuaries, and instantly knew something was wrong. Though she was in Mike’s house his scent was far fainter than normal and the only heartbeat in his bedroom was not his.

It turned out that Mike’s partner, David Graham, had come to pay a final visit. He hadn’t been expecting to run into Mike’s supposed ex, who was still supposed to be in Vancouver, skulking around the basement.

When Vicki heard the news she refused to believe it. To prove it to herself, she broke into the morgue…only to find her lover had already been taken to the funeral home. When she finally managed to find his body, she could barely believe it. For a creature that thrived on death she knew it in many of its shapes and forms.

But never on Michael Celluci.

The entire night was spent at his side in silent numbness. She spent the day sleeping in the attic of an abandoned house nearby, uncaring over whether she would wake up again or not.

She wasn’t able to go to the funeral. His family had the final say in the matter and they chose late morning for the burial.

They were lucky to be gone by the time Vicki woke up that night.

When she saw the headstone, the reality finally sunk it. And she screamed, a primal howl of mourning and rage dredged up from her bestial side that froze the blood of every living creature in a several mile radius

She left Toronto a week later, refusing to contact any of her friends or acquaintances and abandoning her PI business.

A year later she showed up in Vancouver, seeking Henry Fitzroy. When she saw him, she attacked and her sire allowed her to fight, understanding the raging grief still coursing through her very soul.

Eventually, she moved on. Returned to Toronto, picked up her business again, and pushed her feelings back to where they wouldn’t hurt her. Henry called it suppressing, she called it coping.

It would be a long time, decades, before she would allow that she was happy Mike had died instantly with very little pain. Even longer before she would admit that finding him alive would have been worse because she would have been tempted to change him to keep him alive whether he wanted it or not.

But she never got over his death.

**Author's Note:**

> When an immortal loves a mortal, something has to give.


End file.
